Chapter 8

Precipitevolissimevolmente.

But I need not exhort thee thus, who art quick to apprehend and quick to feel, and sure to like at first sight whatever upon better acquaintance deserves to be loved.

MENTION OF ONE FOR WHOM THE GERMANS WOULD COIN A DESIGNATION WHICH MIGHT BE TRANSLATED A ONCE-READER. MANY MINDS IN THE SAME MAN. A POET'S UNREASONABLE REQUEST. THE AUTHOR OFFERS GOOD ADVICE TO HIS READERS, AND ENFORCES IT BY AN EPISCOPAL OPINION.

Judge not beforeThou know mine intent;But read me throughout,And then say thy fill;As thou in opinionArt minded and bent,Whether it beEither good or ill.E. P.

I have heard of a man who made it a law for himself never to read any book again which had greatly pleased him on a first perusal; lest a second reading should in some degree disturb the pleasurable impression which he wished to retain of it. This person must have read only for his amusement, otherwise he would have known that a book is worth little if it deserves to be perused but once: and moreover that as the same landscape appears differently at different seasons of the year, at morning and at evening, in bright weather and in cloudy, by moonlight, and at noon-day, so does the same book produce a very different effect upon the same reader at different times and under different circumstances.

I have elsewhere said that the man of one book is proverbially formidable; but the man of one reading, though he should read through an ample library would never become so.

The studious man who at forty re-peruses books which he has read in his youth or early manhood, vivid as his recollections of them may be, finds them new, because he brings another mind to the perusal. Worthless ones with which he may formerly have been delighted appear flat and unprofitable to his maturer judgement; and on the other hand sterling merit which he was before unable to appreciate, he can now understand and value, having in his acquired knowledge, and habits of reflection the means of assaying it.

Sometimes a Poet, when he publishes what in America would be called a lengthy poem, with lengthy annotations, advises the reader in his preface, not to read the notes in their places, as they occur, lest they should interrupt his clear perception and enjoyment of the piece, but to read the poem by itself at first; and then, for his more full contentment, to begin again, and peruse the notes in their order, whereby he will be introduced to the more minute and recondite merits of the work.

If the poets who calculate upon many such readers are not wise in their generation, they are happy in it.

What I request of my dear readers is far more reasonable, and yet perhaps not much more likely to be granted; I request them, that in justice to themselves,—for that they may not lose any part of the pleasure which I have designed for them; and in justice to me,—that I may not be defrauded of any portion of that grateful applause, which after a due perusal they will undoubtedly bestow upon the benevolent unknown;—and in justice to the ever-honored subject of these volumes,—lest a hasty and erroneous judgement of his character should be formed, when it is only partially considered;—I request that they would not dip into these volumes before they read them, nor while they are reading them, but that they would be pleased to go through the book regularly, in the order of the chapters, and that when they recommend the book to their friends, (as they will do with the friendly intention of contributing to their entertainment and instruction,) they would particularly advise them to begin at the beginning, or more accurately speaking at the seventh chapter before the beginning, and so peruse it consecutively.

So doing, reader, thou wilt perceive the method and the order of the work, developing before thee as thou readest; thou wilt then comprehend and admire the connection of the parts, and their dependence upon each other, and the coherence and beauty of the whole. Whereas were you only to dip into it here and there, you would from such a cursory and insufficient inspection come perhaps to the same conclusion, “wherein nothing was concluded” as the man did concerning Bailey's Dictionary, who upon returning the book to a neighbour from whom he had borrowed it, said that he was much obliged to him for the loan, and that he had read it through, from beginning to end, and had often been much entertained by it, and was sure that the Author must have been a very knowing person;—but—added he to confess the truth, I have never been able clearly to make out what the book is about.

Now as opposite causes will sometimes produce a like effect, thou mightest, by reading this book partially, come to the same inconclusive conclusion concerning it, that our friend did by reading straight forward through Bailey's Dictionary; though considering what there is in that Dictionary, his time might have been worse employed—I very well remember when I was some ten years old, learning from an abridgement of it as much about Abracadabra as I know now. I exhort thee therefore to beginab ovo, with the ante-initial chapters, and to read the whole regularly; and this advice I give, bearing in mind what Bishop Hacket says in his life of the Lord Keeper, Archbishop Williams, when he inserts a speech of that Chancellor-Prelate's, at full length:

“This he delivered, thus much: and I took counsel with myself not to abbreviate it. For it is so compact and pithy that he that likes a little, must like it all. Plutarch gives a rule for sanity to him that eats a tortoise,᾿η ὅλην, ἠ μη ὃλως, eat it up all, or not a whit.” The reason assigned for this rule would look better in Plutarch's Greek than in the Episcopal English; being paraphrased it imports that a small portion of such food is apt to produce intestinal pains; but that a hearty meal has the wholesome effect of those pills which by a delicate and beautiful euphuism of Dr. Kitchener's are called Peristaltic Persuaders. “So,” proceeds the Bishop, “the speech of a great orator is instructive when it is entire: pinch it into an epitome, you mangle the meaning and avile the eloquence.”

WESLEY AND THE DOCTOR OF THE SAME OPINION UPON THE SUBJECT OF THESE CHAPTERS. A STUPENDOUS EXAMPLE OF CYCLOPÆDIAN STOLIDITY.

A good razor never hurts, or scratches. Neither would good wit, were men as tractable as their chins. But instead of parting with our intellectual bristles quietly, we set them up, and wriggle. Who can wonder then if we are cut to the bone?

GUESSES ATTRUTH.

Both Mr. Wesley and Dr. Dove, who much as they differed concerning Methodism, agreed remarkably well in their general method of thinking, would have maintained the morality and propriety of shaving, against all objections founded upon the quantity of time expended in that practice. If the one had preached or the other descanted on the 27th verse of the 19th Chapter of Leviticus, each would have shown that no general application could be made of the prohibition therein contained. But what would they have said to the following physical argument which is gravely advanced in Dr. Abraham Rees's New Cyclopædia?

“The practice of cutting the hair of the head and the beard is attended with a prodigious increase of the secretion of the matter of hair. It is ascertained that a man of fifty years of age will have cut from his head above thirteen feet, or twice his own length of hair; and of his beard, in the last twenty-five years of the same period—above eight feet. The hair likewise besides this enormous length, will be thicker than if it had been left uncut, and must lose most of its juices by evaporation from having its tube and the ends of its fibres always exposed.—The custom of shaving the beard, and cutting the hair of the head, has we believe, been justly deprecated by some physiologists. The latter has been supposed, and with much apparent reason, to weaken the understanding, by diverting the blood from the brain to the surface of the head. The connection which exists between the beard and the organs of generation, and likewise between the muscular strength of the individual, would seem to render it improper to interfere with its natural mode of growth. Bichat attributes the superior strength of the ancients to their custom of wearing their beards; and those men who do not shave at present are distinguished for vigor and hardihood.”

Thus far we have had to deal only with a grave folly, and I shall follow the writer no farther.

What would John Wesley and Daniel Dove have said to the speculations and assertions in this curious passage? They were both men of reading, both speculative men and both professors, each in his way, of the art of medicine. They would have asked what proof could be produced that men who let their beards grow are stronger than those who shave, or that the ancients were superior in bodily strength to the men of the present day? Thus they would have treated his assumed facts; and for his philosophy, they would have inferred, that if cutting the hair weakened the understanding, and the story of Samson were a physical allegory, the person who wrote and reasoned thus must have been sheared at least twice a week from his childhood.

If on the other hand they had been assured that the writer had worn his hair long, then they would have affirmed that, as in the case of the Agonist, it was “robustious to no purpose.”

When the Russian soldiers were first compelled to part with their beards that they might look like other European troops, they complained that the cold struck into their jaws and gave them the tooth-ache. The sudden deprivation of a warm covering might have occasioned this and other local affections. But they are not said to have complained that they had lost their wits.

They are said indeed in the days of Peter the Great to have made a ready use of them in relation to this very subject. Other arguments had been used in vain for persuading them to part with that comfortable covering which nature had provided for their cheeks and chins, when one of their Priests represented to them that their good Czar had given orders for them to be shaved only from the most religious motives and a special consideration of what concerned them most nearly. They were about to march against the Turks. The Turks as they well knew wore beards and it was of the utmost importance that they should distinguish themselves from the misbelievers by this visible mark, for otherwise their protector St. Nicholas in whom they trusted would not know his own people. This was so cogent a reason that the whole army assented to it, and a general shaving took place. But when the campaign against the Turks was over and the same troops were ordered to march against the Swedes, the soldiers called for the Priest, and told him they must now let their beards grow again;—for the Swedes shaved, and they must take care St. Nicholas might know his friends from his foes.

AMOUNT OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL'S PERSONAL SINS ACCORDING TO THE ESTIMATE OF MR. TOPLADY. THE DOCTOR'S OPINION THEREON. A BILL FOR CERTAIN CHURCH REPAIRS. A ROMISH LEGEND WHICH IS LIKELY TO BE TRUE, AND PART OF A JESUIT'S SERMON.

Mankind, tho' satirists with jobations weary us,Has only two weak parts if fairly reckon'd;The first of which, is trifling with things serious;And seriousness in trifles is the second.Remove these little rubs, whoe'er knows how,And fools will be as scarce,—as wise men now.BISHOP.

It is not often that a sportive or fanciful calculation like that of Mr. Campbell, can be usefully applied, or in the dialect of the Evangelical Magazine, improved.

I remember well the look and the voice and the manner with which my ever-to-be-honored friend pointed out to me a memorable passage of this kind in the works of the Reverend Augustus Toplady, of whom he used to say that he was a strong-headed, wrong-headed man; and that in such men you always found the stronger the head, the wronger the opinions; and the more wrongly their opinions were taken up, the more strongly they were persisted in.

Toplady after some whimsical calculations concerning the national debt, proceeds to a “spiritual improvement” of the subject. He asserts that because “we never come up to that holiness which God requires, we commit a sin every second of our existence,” and in this view of the matter, he says, our dreadful account stands as follows. At ten years old each of us is chargeable with 315,036,000 sins; and summing up the account at every intermediate stage of ten years, he makes the man of fourscore debtor for 2,510,288,000.

In Toplady's creed there were no venial sins, any more than in Sir George Mackenzie's, who used this impious argument for the immortality of the soul, that it must needs be immortal because the smallest sin, “the least peccadillo against the Almighty who is Infinite cannot be proportionably punished in the swift glass of man's short life.”

And this man, said the Doctor, laying his finger upon Toplady's book, thinks himself a Christian, and reads the Bible and believes it! He prints and vouches for the authenticity of a painter's bill at Cirencester delivered in to the Churchwarden of an adjacent parish in these words:—Mr. Charles Ferebee, Churchwarden of Siddington to Joseph Cook, Debtor: To mending the Commandments, altering the Belief, and making a new Lord's Prayer £1. 1s.

The Painter made no such alteration in the Christian creed, as he himself did, (when he added to it) that the Almighty has predestined the infinitely greater number of his creatures to eternal misery!

God, says good old Adam Littleton, made no man purposely to damn him. Death was one of man's own inventions, and will be the reward of his evil actions.

The Roman Catholics have a legend from which we may see what proportion of the human race they suppose to be redeemed from perdition: it relates that on the day of St. Bernard's death there died threescore thousand persons, of whom only four souls were saved, the Saint's being one;—the salvage therefore is one in fifteen thousand!

But one legend may be set against another, and Felix Faber the Monk of Ulm gives us one of better import, when he relates the story of a lovely child who in her twelfth year was stricken with the plague, during the great pestilence which in the middle of the fourteenth century swept off a greater portion of the human race than is ever known to have perished in any similar visitation. As the disease increased upon her, she became more beautiful and more cheerful, looking continually upward and rejoicing; for she said she saw that Heaven was open and innumerable lights flowing upward thither, as in a stream,—which were the souls of the elect, ascending as they were released. When they who stood beside her bed were silent and seemed as if they gave no credit to her words, she told them that what she saw was no delusion, and added in token of its sure truth, that her own death would take place that night, and her father die on the third day following: she then pointed to seven persons foretelling to each the day of their decease, and named some others who were not present, who would in like manner be cut off by the plague, saying at what time each of them would expire; and in every instance, according to the legend, the prediction was punctually fulfilled. This is a tale which may in all its parts be true; for such predictions at such a time, when whole cities were almost depopulated by the pestilence, were likely not only to be verified, but in a great degree to bring about their own verification; and the state of her mind would lead to her interpretation of those ocular spectra which were probably effects of the disease, without supposing it to be a happy delirium, heightening her expectation of that bliss which faith had assured to her, and into which her innocent spirit was about to enter.

Had the story been fabricated it would not have been of so humane a character. The Roman Catholics, as is well known, believe that all who are not of what they please to call the Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church, are doomed to everlasting perdition; this doctrine is part of the creed which their laity profess, and to which their clergy swear. If any member of that Church reject an opinion so uncharitable in itself, and in its consequences so infinitely mischievous, he may be a Roman Catholic by his connections, by courtesy, by policy, or by fear; but he is not so in reality, for he refuses to believe in the infallibility of his Church which has on no point declared itself more peremptorily than upon this. All other Christians of every persuasion, all Jews, all Mahometans and all Heathens are goats; only the Romanists are the Sheep of God's pasture,—and the Inquisitors, we may suppose, his Lambs! Of this their own flock they hold that one half are lost sheep; though a liberal opinion, it is esteemed the most probable one upon that subject, and the best founded, because it is written that one shall be taken and one left, and that of the ten virgins who went with their lamps to meet the bridegroom, five were wise, and five foolish.

An eloquent Jesuit preaching before the Court in his own country stated this opinion, and made an application from it to his hearers with characteristic integrity and force. “According to this doctrine,” said he, “which is held by many Saints, (and is not the most straitened, but a large and favorable one,) if I were this day preaching before another auditory, I should say that half of those who heard me belonged to the right hand, and half unto the left. Truly a most wonderful and tremendous consideration, that of Christians and Catholics, enlightened with the faith, bred up with the milk of the Church, and assisted by so many sacraments and aids, half only should be saved! That of ten men who believe in Christ, and for whom Christ died, five should perish! That of an hundred fifty should be condemned! That of a thousand five hundred go to burn eternally in Hell! who is there that does not tremble at the thought? But if we look at the little Christianity and the little fear of God with which men live, we ought rather to give thanks to the Divine Mercy, than to be astonished at this justice.

“This is what I should say if I were preaching before a different audience. But because to-day is a day of undeceiving, (it was the first Sunday in Advent,) and the present Auditory is what it is, let not those who hear me think or persuade themselves, that this is a general rule for all, even although they may be or call themselves Catholics. As in this life there is a wide difference between the great and powerful and those who are not so, so will it be in the Day of Judgement. They are on the right hand to-day, but as the world will then have had so great a turn, it is much to be feared that many of them will then be on the left. Of others half are to be saved, and of the great and powerful, how many? Will there be a third part saved? Will there be a tenth? I shall only say (and would not venture to say it, unless it were the expressed oracle and infallible sentence of supreme Truth,) I shall only say that they will be very few, and those by great wonder. Let the great and mighty listen, not to any other than the Lord himself in the Book of Wisdom.Præbite aurem vos qui continetis multitudinem, quoniam data est a Domino potestas vobis.‘Give ear ye that rule the people, for power is given you of the Lord.’ Ye princes, ye ministers who have the people under your command, ye to whom the Lord hath given this power to rule and govern the commonwealth,præbite aurem, give ear to me! And what have they to hear from God who give ear so ill to men? A proclamation of the Day of Judgement far more portentous and terrible than that which has to summon the dead!Judicium durissimum his qui præsunt fiet; exiguo enim conceditur misericordia; potentes autem potenter tormenta patientur:A sharp judgement shall be to them that be in high places. For mercy will pardon the mean; but mighty men shall be mightily tormented. The Judgement with which God will judge those who rule and govern is to be a sharp Judgement, because mercy will be granted to the mean; but the mighty shall be mightily tormented,potentes potenter tormenta patientur. See here in what that power is to end which is so greatly desired, which is so panted after, which is so highly esteemed, which is so much envied! The mighty fear no other power now, because the power is in their own hands, but when the sharp judgement comes they will then see whose Power is greater than theirs;potentes potenter patientur.”

This was a discourse which might have made Felix tremble.

AN OPINION OF EL VENERABLE PADRE MAESTRO FRAY LUIS DE GRANADA, AND A PASSAGE QUOTED FROM HIS WORKS, BECAUSE OF THE PECULIAR BENEFIT TO WHICH PERSONS OF A CERTAIN DENOMINATION WILL FIND THEMSELVES ENTITLED UPON READING OR HEARING IT READ.

Chacun tourne en réalités,Autant qu'il peut, ses propres songes;L'homme est de glace aux vérités,Il est de feu pour les mensonges.LAFONTAINE.

The translated extract in the preceding Chapter from the most eloquent of the Portuguese preachers,el mismissimo Vieyra, en su mesma mesmedad, as he is called in Fray Gerundio, brings to my mind the most eloquent and the most popular of the Spanish divines, P. M. Luis de Granada. He held an opinion wherein, (as will appear hereafter) the Philosopher of Doncaster did not agree with him, that every thing under the sky was created for man directly or indirectly, either for his own use, or for the use of those creatures which minister to it; for says the Spaniard if he does not eat mosquitoes he eats the birds that eat them; if he does not eat the grass of the field, the cattle graze there that are necessary for his use.

I have a very particular reason for giving the famous and Venerable Dominican's opinion in his own words.

Todo quanto ay debaxo del Cielo, ò es para el hombre, ò para cosas de que se ha de servir el hombre; porque si el no come el mosquito que buela por el ayre, come lo el pajaro de que el se mantiene; y si el no pace la yerva del campo, pacela el ganado, de que el tiene necessidad.

My reason for transcribing this sentence in its original language, is that by so doing I might confer a great act of kindness upon every Roman Catholick who reads the present Chapter. For be it known unto every such reader, that by perusing it, he becomes entitled to an indulgence of an hundred days, granted by D. Pasqual Aragon, Cardinal by the Title of Santa Balbina, and Archbishop of Toledo; and moreover to eighteen several indulgences of forty days each, granted by eighteen most illustrious and most reverend Lords Archbishops and Bishops; such indulgences having been proclaimed,para los que leyeren, ò oyeren leer qualquier capitulo, parrafo, ò periodo de lo que escrivio el dicho V. P. M. Fray Luis de Granada.

It might be a question for the casuists whether a good papist reading the paragraph here presented to him, and not assenting to the opinion expressed therein would be entitled to this discount of eight hundred and twenty days from his time due in Purgatory. But if he accords with the Venerable Dominican, he can no more doubt his own right to participate in the Episcopal and Archiepiscopal grants, than he can call in question the validity of the grants themselves.

AN ENQUIRY IN THE POULTRY-YARD, INTO THE TRUTH OF AN OPINION EXPRESSED BY ARISTOTLE.

This is some liquor poured out of his bottle;A deadly draught for those of Aristotle.J. C. sometime of M. H. Oxon.

Aristotle was of opinion that those animals which have been tamed, or are capable of being so, are of a better nature, or higher grade, than wild ones, and that it is advantageous for them that they should be brought into subjection by man, because under his protection they are safe.

Τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἣμερα τῶν αγριων βελτίω την φυσιν, τούτοις δε πασι βέλτιον αρχεσθαι ὐπ᾿ ανθρωπου, τυγχάνει γαρ σωτηρίας οὕτως.

Our Philosopher was not better disposed to agree with Aristotle upon this point, than with the more commonly received notion of Father Luis de Granada. He thought that unless men were more humane in the days of Alexander the Great, than they are now, and than they have been in all times of which we have any knowledge, the Stagyrite must have stated what ought to be, rather than what is.

So our Philosopher thought; and so I, faithfully retaining the lessons of my beloved Master am prepared to prove. I will go no farther than to the Poultry Yard, and borrowing the names of the Dramatis Personæ from a nursery story, one of his Uncle William's, which has been told with the greatest possible success to all my children in succession, as it was to me, and their Uncles and Aunts before them, I will question the Poultry upon the subject, and faithfully report their evidence.

Voi ch' avete gl' intelletti saniMirate la dottrina che s'ascondeSotto queste coperte alte e profonde.1

1ORLANDOINNAMORATO.

“Chick-pick, Chick-pick, which is best for you; to be a wild Chick-pick, or to live, as you are living, under the protection and care, and regular government of Man?”

Chick-pick answers and says, “Nature provides for my support quite as abundantly and as surely as you can do, and more wisely, you do not make my life happier or more secure while it lasts, and you shorten it; I have nothing to thank you for.”

“Hen-pen, Hen-pen, which is best for you; to be a wild Hen-pen, or to live as you are living, under the protection and care, and regular government of Man?”

Hen-pen answers and says: “Had I been bred up as my mother if she had been a wild Hen-pen would have bred me, I should have had the free use of my wings. I have nothing to thank you for! You take my eggs. Sometimes you make me hatch in their stead a little unnatural brood who run into the water, in spite of all my fears and of all that I can do to prevent them. You afford me protection when you can from foumarts and foxes; and you assist me in protecting my chicken from the kite, and the hawk, but this is that you may keep them for your own eating; you fatten them in coops, and then comes the Cook!”

“Cock-lock which is best for you; to be a wild Cock-lock, or to live as you are living, under the protection and care, and regular government of Man?”

Cock-lock answers and says, “Is there a man impudent enough to ask me the question! You squail at us on Shrove Tuesday; you feed us with Cock-bread, and arm us with steel spurs, that we may mangle and kill each other for your sport; you build cock-pits; you make us fight Welsh mains, and give subscription cups to the winner. And what would that Cock-lock say, who was a Cock-lock till you made him a Capon-lapon!”

“Duck-luck, Duck-luck, which is best for you, to be a wild Duck-luck, or to live as you are living under the protection and care, and regular government of Man?”

Duck-luck answers and says, “I was created to be one of the most privileged of God's creatures, born to the free enjoyment of three elements. My wings were to bear me whither I would thro' the sky, as change of season required change of climate for my well being; the waters were to afford me pastime and food, the earth repose and shelter. No bird more joyous, more active, more clean or more delighting in cleanliness than I should be, if the society of man had not corrupted my instincts. Under your regular government my wings are rendered useless to me; I waddle about the miserable precincts to which I am confined, and dabble in the dirt and grope for garbage in your gutters. And see there are green peas in the garden!”

“Turkey-lurkey, Turkey-lurkey, which is best for you; to be a wild Turkey-lurkey, or to live as you are living, under the protection, and care, and regular government of Man?”

Turkey-lurkey answers and says, “You cram us as if to show that there may be as much cruelty exercised in giving food as in withholding it. Look at the Norwich coaches for a week before Christmas! Can we think of them, think you? without wishing ourselves in the woods like our blessed ancestors, where chine, sausages and oyster-sauce are abominations which never have been heard of!” Sir Turkey-lurkey then shook and ruffled and reddened the collops of his neck, and gobbled out his curses upon man.

“Goosey-loosey, Goosey-loosey, which is best for you; to be a wild Goosey-loosey, or to live as you are living, under the protection and care and regular government of Man?”

Goosey-loosey answers and says, “It is not for any kindness to us that you turn us into your stubbles. You pluck us that you may lie the softer upon our feathers. You pull our quills that you may make pens of them. O St. Michael, what havoc is committed amongst us under the sanction of your arch-angelic name! And O Satan! what punishment wilt thou exact from those inhuman wretches who keep us in a state of continual suffering in order to induce a disease by which our livers may be enlarged for the gratification of wicked epicures! We might curse man for all that we know of his protection and care, and regular government;but,—”

BUT! said Goosey-loosey, and lifting up her wings significantly she repeated a third time that word BUT! and with a toss of the head and a twist of the snaky neck which at once indicated indignation and triumph, turned away with all the dignity that Goose-nature could express.

I understood the meaning of that But.

It was not one of those dreaded, ominous, restrictive, qualifying, nullifying or negativing Buts of which Daniel, the tenderest of all tender poets, says,

Ah! now comes that bitter word ofButWhich makes all nothing that was said before!That smoothes and wounds, that strokes and dashes moreThan flat denial, or a plain disgrace.

It was not one of those heart-withering, joy-killing, and hope-annihilating Buts. It was a minatory But, full of meaning as ever Brewer's Butt was full of beer.

However I will not broach that But in this Chapter.

A QUESTION ASKED AND RIGHTLY ANSWERED, WITH NOTICES OF A GREAT IMPORTATION ANNOUNCED IN THE LEITH COMMERCIAL LIST.

“But tell me yet what followed on that But.”

DANIEL.

Great, Reader, are the mysteries of Grammarians! Dr. Johnson considered But as only a Conjunction, whereas, says Mr. Todd, it is in fact a Conjunction, Preposition, Adverb and Interjection, as Dr. Adam Smith long since ingeniously proved. With Horne Tooke it is a verb to boot, being according to him the imperative of the Saxon beon-utan,to be out;but in this Mr. Todd supposes him to be out himself. And Noah Webster says it is also a Participle and a Noun. Pity that some one has not proved it to be a Pronoun; for then it would have belonged to all the eight parts of speech.

Great are the mysteries of Grammarians!

O Reader, had you in your mindSuch stores as subtlety can bringO gentle Reader, you would findA mystery in every thing.

For once, dear Reader, I who pride myself upon lucid order of arrangement, and perspicuity of language, instead of making, which I have heretofore done, and shall hereafter do, the train of my associations as visible as the tract of a hare in the dewy grass or in the snow, will let it be as little apparent as that of a bird in the air, or a serpent on a rock; or as Walter Landor in his poems, or his brother Robert's, whose poetry has the true Landorean obscurity, as well as the Landorean strength of diction and the Landorean truth and beauty of feeling and of thought: perhaps there is no other instance of so strongly marked an intellectual family likeness.

Thus having premised, I propound the following question: Of all the Birds in the air, and all the beasts in the field, and all the fishes in the sea, and all the creatures of inferior kind, who pass their lives wholly, or in part, according to their different stages of existence, in air, earth or water, what creature has produced directly or indirectly, the most effect upon mankind?—That, which you Reader, will deserve to be called, if you do not after a minute's reflection answer the question rightly.

The Goose!

Now Reader you have hit theBut.

Among the imports in the Leith Commercial List, for June 1830, is an entry of 1,820,000 goose quills, brought by the Anne from Riga, for Messrs. Alexander Duncan and Son of Edinburgh.

One million, eight hundred and twenty thousand goose quills! The number will present itself more adequately to thy imagination when it is thus expressed in words.

O Reader, consider in thy capacious mind the good and the evil in which that million, eight hundred and twenty thousand quills will be concerned!

Take notice that the whole quantity is of foreign growth—that they are all imported quills, and so far from being all that were imported, that they were brought by one ship, and for only one house. Geese enough are not bred in Great Britain for supplying pens to schools, counters, public offices, private families, authors, and last not least in their consumption of this article, young ladies,—though they call in the crow-quills to their aid. Think of the Lawyers, Reader! and thou wilt then acknowledge that even if we were not living at this time under a government of Newspapers, the Goose is amply revenged upon mankind.

And now you understand Goosey-loosey's BUT.

A WISH CONCERNING WHALES, WITH SOME REMARKS UPON THEIR PLACE IN PHYSICAL AND MORAL CLASSIFICATION. DR. ABRAHAM REES. CAPTAIN SCORESBY. THE WHALE FISHERY.

Your Whale he will swallow a hogshead for a pill;But the maker of the mouse-trap is he that hath skill.BENJONSON.

When gas-lights came into general use, I entertained a hope that Whales would no longer be slaughtered for the sake of their oil. The foolishness of such a hope may be excused for its humanity.

I will excuse you Reader, if in most cases, you distrust that word humanity. But you are not to be excused if you suspect me of its counterfeit, that mock humanity which is one characteristic of this dishonourable and dishonest age. I say you are not to be excused, if being so far acquainted as by this time you must be with the philosophy of the Doctor, you suspect me his faithful and dutiful disciple of this pitiful affectation.

How the thought concerning Whales came just now into my mind will be seen when its application shall in due course be made apparent. Where I am is always well known to myself, tho' every Reader may not always discover my whereabout. And before the thought can be applied I must show upon what our Philosopher's opinions concerning Whales, or fancies if you think proper so to call them, were founded; mine—upon this and most other matters, having been as I gratefully acknowledge, derived from him.

Linnæus in his classification, as is well known, arranges Whales with Quadrupeds, an arrangement at which Uncle Toby, if he had been told of it, would have whistled Lilli-bullero, and the Doctor if he had not been a man of science himself, would have sung

Fa la la lerridanDan dan dan derridanDan dan dan derridanDerridan dee.

But Uncle Toby never could have been told of it, because he good man died before Linnæus dreamt of forming a system; and Doctor Dove was a man of science, so that Lillibullero was never whistled upon this occasion, nor Dan dan dan derridan sung.

Whistle the one Reader, or sing the other, which you will, or if you will, do both; when you hear that in Dr. Rees's Cyclopædia it is said, “the Whale has no other claim to a place among fishes, than from its fish-like appearance and its living in the water.” The Whale has its place among them whatever the Cyclopædists may think of its claim, and will never have it any where else; and so very like a fish it is,—so strongly in the odour of fishiness, which is a good odour if it be not too strong,—that if the Greenlanders had been converted by the Jesuits instead of the Moravians, the strictest disciplinarian of that order would without doubt have allowed his converts to eat Whale upon fish days.

But whether Whale be fish or flesh, or if makers of system should be pleased to make it fowl, (for as it is like a Quadruped except that it has no feet, and cannot live upon land, so it may be like a bird, except that it has neither legs, wings, nor feathers, and cannot live in the air,) wherever naturalists may arrange it, its local habitation is among fishes, and fish in common language it always will be called. This whole question matters not to our present purpose. Our Philosopher had regard to its place in the scale of existence, a scale which he graduated not according to size, (tho' that also must sometimes be taken into the account,) nor by intellect which is yet of greater consideration, but according to those affections or moral feelings, which, little acquainted as we are with the nature of the lower creatures, are in many instances too evident to be called in question.

Now in this respect no other creature in the water, ranks so high as the Whale.

The affection of the parent for its young is both in itself and its consequences purely good, however those men seek to degrade it who ascribe all feelings, and all virtuous emotions, whether in man or beast, to selfishness, being themselves conscious that they have no worthier motive for any of their own actions. Martin Luther says that the Hebrew word which we translate bycurse, carries not with it in the original language so strong a meaning as is given to it in his mother tongue,—consequently in ours. The Hebrew imprecation, he says, imports no more than “ill betide thee!” intending byilltemporal misfortune, or punishment, the proper reward of ill deeds; not what is implied by cursing in its dreadful acceptation. A curse then in the Hebrew sense, be upon those who maintain this sensual, and sensualizing opinion; an opinion of which it is the sure effect to make bad men worse, and the folly and falsehood of which birds, and beasts might teach them, were it not that—because their hearts are gross, seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

The Philosopher of Doncaster affirmed that virtue as well as reason might be clearly perceived in the inferior creation, and that their parental affection was proof of it. The longer the continuance of this affection in any species, the higher he was disposed to place that species in the scale of animated life. This continuance bears no relation to their size in birds, and little in quadrupeds; but in the whale it seems to be somewhat more proportionate, the young depending upon the mother more than twelve-months certainly, how much longer has not been ascertained. And so strong is the maternal affection that it is a common practice among whalers to harpoon the cub as a means of taking the mother; for this creature altho' harmless and timid at all other times, totally disregards danger when its young is to be defended, gives every possible indication of extreme agony for its young's sake, and suffers itself to be killed without attempting to escape. The mighty Ceticide Captain Scoresby describes a most affecting instance of this; “there is something,” he observes, “extremely painful in the destruction of a whale, when thus evincing a degree of affectionate regard for its offspring, that would do honour to the superior intelligence of human nature; yet, he adds, the object of the adventure, the value of the prize, the joy of the capture, cannot be sacrificed to feelings of compassion.” That conclusion if it were pursued to its legitimate consequences would lead farther than Captain Scoresby would follow it!

The whale fishery has indeed been an object of almost portentous importance according to the statements made by this well-informed and very able writer. That on the coast of Greenland proved, he says, in a short time the most lucrative and the most important branch of national commerce that had ever been offered to the industry of man. The net profits which the Dutch derived from the Greenland fishery during an hundred and seven years are stated at more than 20 millions sterling.

The class of Captains and seamen, employed in the southern whale-fishery, says a person engaged in that business himself, are quite different from any other. Lads taken from the streets without shoes and stockings, become many of them masters of ships and men of very large property. “There was an instance, a short time ago of one dying worth £60,000.: and I can point out twenty instances of persons worth 7 or 8, or £10,000. who have risen without any patronage whatever by their own exertions. It does not require any patronage to get on in the fishery.” Such is the statement of one who was examined before a Committee of the House of Commons in 1833, upon the state of Manufactures, Commerce and Shipping.

In a pamphlet written about the middle of the last century to recommend the prosecution of this trade, it was stated that the whale-fishery is of the nature of a lottery, where tho' the adventurers are certain losers on the whole, some are very great gainers; and this, it was argued, instead of being a discouragement was in fact the most powerful motive by which men were induced to engage in it.

If indeed the pleasure of gambling be in proportion to the stake, as those miserable and despicable persons who are addicted to that vice seem to think it is; and if the pleasure which men take in field sports, be in proportion to the excitement which the pursuit calls forth, whaling must be in both respects the most stimulating of all maritime adventures. One day's sport in which Captain Scoresby took three whales, produced a return of £2,100. and several years before he retired from this calling he had been personally concerned in the capture of three hundred, and twenty-two. And his father in twenty-eight voyages, in which he commanded a ship brought home 498 whales, producing 4246 tons of oil, the value of which, with that of the whale-bone, exceeded £150,000. “all fished for under his own direction out of the sea.”

The whale fishery is even of more importance as a nursery for seamen, for of all naval services it is the most severe; and this thorough seaman describes the excitement and the enjoyment of a whaler's life as being in proportion to the danger. “The difficulties and intricacies of the situation, when the vessel is to be forced through masses of drift ice, afford exercise,” he says, “for the highest possible exertion of nautical skill, and are capable of yielding to the person who has the management of a ship, a degree of enjoyment, which it would be difficult for navigators accustomed to mere common place operations duly to appreciate. The ordinary management of a ship, under a strong gale, and with great velocity, exhibits evolutions of considerable elegance; but these cannot be compared with the navigation in the intricacies of floating ice, where the evolutions are frequent, and perpetually varying; where manœuvres are to be accomplished, that extend to the very limits of possibility; and where a degree of hazard attaches to some of the operations, which would render a mistake of the helm,—or a miscalculation of the powers of a ship, irremediate and destructive.”—How wonderful a creature is man, that the sense of power should thus seem to constitute his highest animal enjoyment!

In proportion to the excitement of such a life, Captain Scoresby describes its religious tendency upon a well disposed mind, and this certainly has been exemplified in his own person. “Perhaps there is no situation in life,” he says, “in which an habitual reliance upon Providence, and a well founded dependance on the Divine protection and support, is of such sensible value as it is found to be by those employed in seafaring occupations, and especially in the fishery for whales. These are exposed to a great variety of dangers, many of which they must voluntarily face; and the success of their exertions depends on a variety of causes, over many of which they have no controul. The anxiety arising from both these causes is greatly repressed, and often altogether subdued, when, convinced of the infallibility and universality of Providence by the internal power of religion, we are enabled to commit all our ways unto God, and to look for his blessing as essential to our safety, and as necessary for our success.”

John Newton of Olney has in his narrative of his own remarkable life, a passage that entirely accords with these remarks of Captain Scoresby, and which is in like manner the result of experience. “A sea-faring life,” he says, “is necessarily excluded from the benefit of public ordinances, and christian communion.—In other respects, I know not any calling that seems more favourable, or affords greater advantages to an awakened mind, for promoting the life of God in the soul, especially to a person who has the command of a ship, and thereby has it in his power to restrain gross irregularities in others, and to dispose of his own time.—To be at sea in these circumstances, withdrawn out of the reach of innumerable temptations, with opportunity and a turn of mind disposed to observe the wonders of God, in the great deep, with the two noblest objects of sight the expanded heavens and the expanded ocean, continually in view; and where evident interpositions of Divine Providence in answer to prayer occur almost every day; these are helps to quicken and confirm the life of faith, which in a good measure supply to a religious sailor the want of those advantages which can be only enjoyed upon the shore. And indeed though my knowledge of spiritual things (as knowledge is usually estimated) was at this time very small, yet I sometimes look back with regret upon those scenes. I never knew sweeter or more frequent hours of divine communion than in my two last voyages to Guinea, when I was either almost secluded from society on ship-board, or when on shore among the natives.”

What follows is so beautiful (except the extravagant condemnation of a passionate tenderness which he, of all men, should have been the last to condemn) that the passage though it has set us ashore, must be continued a little farther. “I have wandered,” he proceeds, “thro' the woods, reflecting on the singular goodness of the Lord to me in a place where, perhaps, there was not a person who knew him, for some thousand miles round me. Many a time upon these occasions I have restored the beautiful lines of Tibullus,1to the right owner; lines full of blasphemy and madness, when addressed to a creature, but full of comfort and propriety in the mouth of a believer.

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